Talk:List of people from Binghamton, New York

Rockefeller: Richford NY is NOT Binghamton.

User:Vmanjr: There are a few problems with your revert of my deletion of the incorrect statement that John Rockefeller was "from Binghamton"

1. It is not true. He was born in Richford NY, which 32 miles away, and IN THE NEXT COUNTY!. 32 miles is a LONG distance, a 40+ min drive, the distance between Dallas and Ft. Worth. Try to tell someone from Dallas that they are "from Ft. Worth" and let me know what they tell you :)
2. You admit in the comment to your edit that he "grew up in Owego". Again, this is in another county (Tioga).
3. You claim in the edit that "Richford is part of the Binghamton metro area", but cite no source of this.

Are you from around here? I seriously doubt it, because if you were, you would know that Richford is not part of any "Metro area". Richford is rural, out in the middle of nowhere. The Binghamton "metro area" is generally called the Triple Cities, which includes Binghamton, the village of Johnson City, and the village of Endicott. "Greater Binghamton" extends a little beyond that, including Kirkwood and Vestal.

Now if you are talking about some arbitrary "Binghamton Metro Radio Market", or MSA, those are arbitrary lines drawn for the convenience of marketing people and politicians. I will tell you that NO ONE around here would consider Richford, a part of "Binghamton".

The fact is, the title of the article is "List of people from Binghamton NY", NOT, "list of people from the Greater Binghamton Metropolitan Statistical Area". Your edit is a factual error, and IMO a violation of WP:VERIFY and WP:PLACE I will delete your revision in 15 days if you do not do so yourself or else propose a compromise. Thanks! Bill Huston ^(talk) 00:37, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

First, let's start off with what Wikipedia considers verifiable here (WP:GEOLAND). By that very standard, the metropolitan area of a city is the one determined by the US Census Bureau, not what local residents colloquially refer to as the metro area (as I doubt any reliable sources will establish a consensus for that). As I'm sure you know, this legal definition includes all of Broome and Tioga Counties.[1] The Greater Binghamton moniker that's been adopted lately adopts this same definition.[2] Ad hominem attack aside (I've lived in the Binghamton area practically my whole life, and I drive through Richford monthly), I agree that Richford is quite rural, but that legal definition and not our own observation is what Wikipedia considers verifiable.

Even if you have an issue with Richford, Rockefeller did spend time in Owego, and attended Owego Academy.[3][4][5] I personally know many people living and working in Owego who, when asked by someone from out of town, consider themselves to be part of the Binghamton area and say that they hail from/work in Binghamton, since it's the closest city that someone might recognize. Remember - Wikipedia isn't just for us, it's for the entire world. Likewise, I know people in Fort Worth who very much say they are from the Dallas area. Like nobody from Dallas would say they're from Fort Worth, nobody from Port Dick would say they're from Endicott, but they would use Binghamton since people refer to the Binghamton region (or in the Texan case, Dallas or Dallas/Fort Worth or the Metroplex). Again, that doesn't matter - my personal opinion/experience and your personal opinion/experience are irrelevant (WP:OR).

Since Wikipedia needs verifiable facts, we must for better or worse stick with geopolitical definitions, and by those very definitions, Rockefeller did indeed spend a non-trivial part of his time in the Binghamton area. And yes - the article states in its first line that it covers the Binghamton area, not just the city itself. As is the case throughout Wikipedia, these types of lists include people not just from the city proper, but from their surrounding metropolitan areas (see lists for Rochester, Allentown, Pittsburgh, and Denver for examples).

Another thing to note - the Census Bureau does more than just arbitrarily draw lines for their MSAs. They actually consider the social and economic integration of the counties,[6] and this includes tracking the number of people in a contiguous urban area, the percentage of people who commute back and forth, etc.[7] In fact, this very analysis led the Census Bureau to remove Susquehanna County in 1983, as the interaction trends shifted.[8] Interestingly enough, Tioga County's link to Binghamton is strong enough that it is classified as a central county of the metropolitan area, not an outlying one.[9]

This list, in my opinion rightfully so, encompasses anyone notable who came from the defined metropolitan area. I'm certainly open to considering compromises if you have any. Perhaps the article should be renamed "People from the Binghamton, New York metropolitan area" to avoid any ambiguities? Rockefeller's far from the only one on that list who never lived within city limits. Vmanjr (talk) 03:01, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. If someone asks you "Where are you from?", or "Where were you born"? How do you answer? With your Village, Town, or City. Maybe your county. Claiming that "Rockefeller is from Binghamton" gets everything wrong. It is not even close. Wrong town. Wrong county. ABSOLUTELY NO ONE will answer with the MSA, because unless you are a sociologist or work for FEMA or maybe are a Wikipedia wonk, you probably have no idea what an MSA is, let alone which one you live in.

Bottom Line: IT IS NOT a verifiable fact that Rockefeller was "from Binghamton". This is false. I am opposed to your suggestion to rename the article for many reasons. It breaks the standard for many other similar articles, and also the "Binghamton, New York metropolitan area" does not have a clear definition. Also, Richford is not part of ANY "metro area" (except by some arbitrary definition by some cartographer at FEMA or U.S. Census Bureau). Richford is not urban or suburban. It is RURAL.

Richford is actually closer to Ithaca than it is to Binghamton, so the designation that Richford is in the "Binghamton Metro Area" as opposed to the "Ithaca Metro area" is utterly arbitrary. WP:POV

My proposed compromise is that any people who are not from the City of Binghamton or the Town of Binghamton have their actual town of birth etc. be listed in (parens) after the entry. Thanks Bill Huston ^(talk) 03:55, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "breaks the standards" since, as you can see from the other articles, they do exactly this using MSA boundaries (either implicitly with their content or, as is the case for the Pittsburgh and Allentown articles, in the title itself). Unfortunately, much as you insist, the overwhelming Wikipedia consensus is that U.S. MSAs are not arbitrary, and do indeed serve as a standardized way of describing regions. Keep in mind that metropolitan and urban are not the same, and again, I doubt you'll be able to provide a verifiable source that will state otherwise. Metropolitan includes the urban area as well as surrounding, less populated regions. Personally, I don't answer with my town or county when prompted, because when I have in the past, nobody has a clue except for other people from the area. When I say I'm from Binghamton, though, most everyone gets that. The local government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a decade ago for a firm to tell us the same thing, which is where the term Greater Binghamton originated from. (I reserve my personal sentiments on that name.) This regional identification is typical for places in the eastern U.S., where decades of sprawl and suburbanization have blurred traditional borders.

That said, your proposal sounds like a good approach, though listing the full town in each case might clutter things up a bit. Perhaps a simpler solution might be to use symbols such as † to denote people from outside the city proper as well as people who attended Binghamton University (two different symbols, naturally). Vmanjr (talk) 04:26, 29 May 2014 (UTC)